Page 27 of Breaking Point
“I want you to hear it.It’s important, Luciana!”
She spun back to face him.“Not to me!In the whole time I’ve known you, Brice, I’ve never once thought you were cruel.Until now.”She would go home.She couldn’t possibly stay here now.She set off, intending to make a big loop around the back of the picnic area, back to where the taxiboats were dropping people.She shouldn’t have any trouble at all finding an empty one to take her back up to the hub….
“I wanted you to see it, Luciana!”Brice called, behind her.“I needed to know that this was more than just the damn market stalls!”
Luciana halted.She couldn’t have taken another step.Shock had locked her knees.She could feel it slide over her, a cold wave, from her head to her feet.Slowly, she turned back to him.
Brice had followed her.Of course he had.He leaned on the cane, looking ruffled and anxious…when had she learned to read him so well?
“What?”she breathed, her heart thundering.Perhaps she had misheard.
Brice raised his hand.“How could I know, any other way?”He dropped his hand.“How couldyouknow?”
“You kissed her.”
He scrubbed at his hair.“I’ve known Jenny since she was a baby.She’s Bronson’s daughter and she used to come to me to get her out of scrapes, to negotiate with her father, and two years ago, she wheedled me into introducing her spouse to Bronson.Her spouse, Marianne.”
While Luciana stared at him, speechless, he shrugged.It was a tiny shift of his shoulders.“You weren’t going to know what was in your own mind any other way, Luciana.You’ve never had to, before.”
Her heart was still racing.This time it was for a different reason.“You decided an objective lesson was in order?”
“No, dammit.Ineeded to know, too.Since the arena, I’ve been out of my mind wondering what the hell I was going to do.I couldn’t take it any longer, Luciana.I’m sorry.”
She took a step toward him.Another.Her amazement was building.“You couldn’thave asked me?” she cried.
He threw out his hand.“There wasno pointasking you.Until this moment now, you wouldn’t have known.You’re so ruthlessly focused.Your mind is brilliant, when it comes to business.And your drive is unending.They both stop you from noticing anything around you.Including what your heart is doing.You wouldn’t see it because you don’t think you deserve happiness.”
Luciana pressed her fingers to her temples.How well he knew her!She didn’t know whether to scream at him, or kiss him.He was right on every count.
She loved him.
“If I come closer, will you scream at me?”he asked, his voice lower.
Luciana laughed.It wasn’t a healthy sound.She wasn’t amused.She slapped her hand over her mouth.
Brice moved closer.Slowly, he put his arm around her, and drew her up against him.
Luciana wound her arms around his neck and kissed him right there in front of all five thousand occupants of theEndurance.
•
Luciana was drunk on emotions, not champagne, which Brice had in a basket beside the sofa.She barely touched it.She felt as though she was floating.
And when the picnic was over, and the last of the dancing had stopped, Brice took her hand and walked across the bridge and into the trees, to his house.
It was more than sex.It had been more than sex for a long time, only she had failed to notice.
Afterward, they lay in the dark, listening to the fireworks and the people still drinking in the clearing.
“How did you know?”she whispered in the dark, her head on his shoulder.“How did you know how I felt?”
For a long moment he didn’t answer.That was just like Brice.He slowed down and formulated careful answers when the topic was important to him.Luciana waited.
“I knew because I’ve been there before,” he said at last.Then, “I destroyed my relationship with Susanne.”
“After the accident?Weren’t you…recovering?”
“In all ways,” he said.“I was so angry about not being able to play anymore.And there was pain.Constant pain.The trauma therapy wasn’t doing a bit of good.I would dream about the accident and relive it all day long.I stopped paying attention to anything but my own pile of misery.I didn’t break up with Susanne.I barely noticed she was gone, until much later, when it was too late.”
